"cleaved" poems
When the fire grabbed his body, it didn't happen by degrees.
There was no burst of heat before,
or giant wave of smothering smoke
and the feeling of a spare room one wants to escape to.
The fire held him at once
—there are no metaphors for this—
it peeled off his clothes
cleaved to his flesh.
The skin nerves were the first to be touched.
The hair was consumed.
"God! They are burning!" he shouted.
And that is all he could do in self-defense.
The flesh was already burning between the shack's boards
that fed the fire in the first stage.
There was already no consciousness in him.
The fire burning his flesh
numbed his sense of future
and the memories of his family
and he had no more ties to his childhood
and he didn't ask for revenge, salvation,
or to see the dawn of the next day.
He just wanted to stop burning.
But his body supported the conflagration
and he was as if bound and fettered,
and of that too he did not think.
And he continued to burn by the power of his body
made of hair and wax and tendons.
And he burned a long time.
And from his throat inhuman voices issued
for many of his human functions had already ceased,
except for the pain the nerves transmitted
in electric impulses
to the pain center in the brain,
and that didn't last longer than a day.
And it was good that his soul was freed that day
because he deserved to rest.
Translated from the original Hebrew by Karen Alkalay-Gut.
8.7k
Religion is like wrestling when it was kayfabed
The kind of immersive storytelling that is A grade
We became trapped
In the Walls of Jericho
Separated on the map
From the fields of marigolds
Shinier things catch our eye
Like Goldust in the ring
Not of Mankind
But McMahon's kind
We start to see behind the Big Show
Until they introduce the Boogeyman
Manipulating until progress is slowed
All according to plan
Jake the Snake offers the apple to Eve
And into calamity we are cleaved
This was something I never agreed
But Christian pushes me to Edge
No room in discourse to hedge
Swanton bombs fall in cities
The Million Dollar Man cracks a smile
Unable to feel pity
The billions of bodies start to pile
And I haven't seen the Hart Foundation in a while
These ideas pin us down
And we can't kick out
We end up indifferently submitting
To the Big Boss Man
A legacy we're cementing
Like the Ku Klux ****
I'm from Kentucky
Where biology is taught in the context
Of where it fits in with Christianity's teachings
I wonder how many people this knowledge is reaching
When we're trapped in Wrestlemania
We cheer for the Undertaker's victory
Because we're constantly wrestling with demons
Transcendence is only something we can dream of
Aug 25, 2017
Aug 25, 2017 at 6:17 AM UTC
The river forks at big stone eddy
rending currents meandering course,
its silence speaks not with forked tongue
as kismet's swirling eddies abide
as if time immemorial;
a river naturally cleaved
in two separate distinct directions
befallen destiny without a choice
Spinning round and round in big stone eddy,
time just drifting by in the throes
of doubt — high water rising
beyond the bounds of earth
taking drowning souls up to the sky
Choking on a mouthful of unanswered questions,
suffocating on the parting words left unsaid;
distilling life into poetry hew from being —
trickling out like the spilled out sky —
taken down to the empty riverbed
leave lay' til it's all washed away,
in the music of the pourin' down rain
Freedom embodies metaphysical incarnations
riding the prevailing currents it can't control
Gravity-gathered down to the shoreline,
manifest reclamation after the deluge,
from somewhere far above the high-water mark
Swallowed by all the darkness woe betides,
thinking you carry such a weight to hold...
It seems all got a handful of sand to toss
up into the wind to seed the clouds
The totality of eclipsing silence grows
that rent the stillness of a dream
of peace on an eroding shoreline
In an Eddy of Expectations & Disappointment
dark waters will ebb and flow,
imponderable as drowning hope,
leaving it all out there to dry after the rain
believing in your heart —
the best is yet to come
Jesse Stillwater ... November 2018
Nov 24, 2018
Nov 24, 2018 at 12:09 PM UTC
Burning from torment as I gaze to his eyes,
Piercing through his soul as I scan nothing but lies,
A total illusion which rendered me vulnerable,
Crimson betrayal let my heart dripped and drizzle.
Feeling the memories alone in the moonlight,
Reminisce the days when we first see at sight,
Such an ache in the heart to think you're not you,
But memories worth the living until you change on hue.
How ironic to think to be in desperate situation,
Seemingly thirst from bliss until the night breaks from dawn,
I spared life on a candle to prolonged it's happiness,
But regret remorse with me as it selfishly shade itself from total blackness.
Here in the plain vast wilderness of solitary,
Heart was throbbing in pain yelling for revenge endlessly,
Though tortured was my heart and silently cleaved,
But my sweetest revenge is just to forgive.
Apr 28, 2015
Apr 28, 2015 at 4:32 AM UTC
Malignant gazes warped the
the fabric of the air around me.
I couldn't do anything but tell
her that to wish upon a dying star
will never end well.
The atrocity that clung to the ships
hull, was no less human now than
the artificial meat 3d printed..
It taste liked chicken,
but..
there were no eggs in space.
Words like plasma cannons fired
around me bouncing off the walls.
Ok, ok listen I didn't do this to you!
Your the penny that could pay the price,
and this is your tarnished self pity.
I wasn't having any of her grief,
though it could vacate me with ease.
Standing before her I said I could less
cure her than breath in space..
With that she raged in a language
of ferocious exasperation.
I knew that it was time to vacate her
need for some sort of vengeance.
I'd got the necklace on under my garments.
Pointing my pistol at her, she smirked,
then a gargled laugh spat out.
That toy cant harm me, is this your last
stand what a pointless endeavour..
Now it was my turn to smirk,
I don't know if it was panic
or confusion to why I was laughing.
like a hyena knowing that the
pray had just cornered itself.
With that I shot past her, like a
random act, I still laughed loudly.
And then a buckling ache approached.
As the hull cleaved open like a piñata
hit feverishly by an excited child.
As we where exhumed from our coffin,
suffocating in the emptiness of my actions.
I could see her fear, no matter her augmentations,
nothing could survive the vacuum of space.
I pressed upon my chest, my nanite suit
encompassing me.
I was like a new born taking a first breath
Looking at this sorrowful figure, floating
in to the abyss. I knew I was partly to blame.
But now was not the time for respective thoughts.
This was about survival, and I used the small thrusters
to edge closely to the air lock.
Time to move on, time to breath deeply.
Mar 14, 2019
Mar 14, 2019 at 7:00 PM UTC
Lovely Spring,
A brief sweet thing,
Is swift on the wing;
Gracious Summer,
A slow sweet comer,
Hastens past;
Autumn while sweet
Is all incomplete
With a moaning blast,--
Nothing can last,
Can be cleaved unto,
Can be dwelt upon;
It is hurried through,
It is come and gone,
Undone it cannot be done,
It is ever to do,
Ever old, ever new,
Ever waxing old
And lapsing to Winter cold.
3.4k
*how many ways may i undo you ...
each sublime
i crave your vermilion waters
copper gilded plush
falling to my hungry naked mouth
drug euphoria
drooling ***** toy
as i stroke your ankles
with tender fingers
and brush your delicate feet with my lips
before i lift you
floating girl
and you lose yourself
thanking God
for the inconceivable pleasure
of unbearable pain
as you are split and ruptured open
oh pink flowers splashing
in a stained tub
of
blood like a blotter
sanguine perfume
mouth melting kisses
heaping vulva's detonations
adorations petition
am i not vulturous
holding you in my warm arms
while i whisper in the caverns of your hollow breath
that you mean the world to me
i drink rain storming from torrid gates howling
from your cleaved ******* and unfurled belly
your eyes
moons trembling
immersed in your fathomless yawning soul
as you take your last breaths
tell me baby
is it tender cruel
are angels kissing you yet
are you caressed by powder pearlescent clouds
are you butter on the lips of God
while dark curtains flutter and shut
while i weep and convulse
in heaping waves of ecstasy
there is only you
like
heavens thunder*
Jun 4, 2017
Jun 4, 2017 at 3:55 PM UTC
Too roughly hewn and cleaved around edges frayed
shaped and reshaped by these own calloused hands
I realize the shape of things ,... who I am ... who I've become ―
The sound of my own raw voice knows not convention ;
it was nothing more than words of fragmented tomes exposed
Only the broken wind covering footprints on the road not taken
on a never ending journey into a lonely abyss
These greatest fears I've come to know ;
my greatest weakness bared and borne
broken dreams bought and sold,
for less than they were worth.
In the chill of this winter darkness grown cold
a newly recurring silence echoes poignantly,..
redux
forevermore
self-loathed
déjà vu ―
***The only dream's fruition ever feared:
to walk alone at that predestined parting moment
within a stones throw of six feet underground ,...
dropping to these knees at a threshold
well-nigh left behind,
knocking at the door that leads beyond ―
never needing to know how to say goodbye …***
thinking out loud ... 11. 29. 2016
Nov 29, 2016
Nov 29, 2016 at 12:49 PM UTC
I am one of three –
Shadow, skin, and light.
A triplet split from the same egg and *****
**
Make it 3 and you’ll have me
Explicit.
It’s so ****
Being cleaved into thirds.
A ********* with myself –
The shadow is morose.
A needy, demanding *****
Begging to be cut up.
I want to,
So I can see the blood wring around my –
Her
Wrists like shackles pinning her
To my bed.
I know it’ll shut her up
But I can’t bring myself to do it.
I’m not that *****
The skin is boring.
A virginal flower
Dreaming of understanding.
She’s too wholesome,
Always waiting for the right
Version of herself to come along.
Saving myself –
Herself
For the right time.
My tastes aren’t quite so
Vanilla.
The light is adventurous.
A psychotic, brilliant ****
******* herself into the ground.
Necrophilia just got a whole lot hotter,
Bodies piling up thanks to her STDs –
Stupid, thoughtless decisions.
Protection? Ha!
That’s for normal people.
There’s no need for me –
Her
To slow down;
We like it fast.
The skin doesn’t participate.
The ***** virtuous ******
Fidgets as the others 69 –
A disgusting yin yang
Of low and high.
The shadow drinking downers
Until she can’t remember
All the bruises covering her heart,
Too distracted by the bile
Smeared across her lips.
The light popping enough uppers
To strip herself of her
Consciousness,
Naked and raw
She often wakes bitter
Of her restored senses.
This ********* takes place
In a womb,
An amniotic ocean
Swaying toward the shores
Of existence.
Two will drown –
Vanishing triplet syndrome.
Only one may be pulled from
Mental waters and placed on the sands of reality.
The labor takes 33 hours -
Finally I emerge.
Who survived?
There is no way to tell.
Jun 26, 2014
Jun 26, 2014 at 1:09 AM UTC
the world is flown
and i sleep beside you wed
our mossy appetite has become cleaved
a sleeve running between us on this bed
a warm hum the pores pipe open
intimacy issues forth traversing the gap
intelligence sliding slack and froth
like moist candy-floss icking and tearing
our shared dream
our powerful phantom
gussy travellers
ravelling in sheets of smoky sea
grey/green misting of the memory gland
gathering up dead celebrity
tuning structures to our jubilee
re-creation in a vibe theatre
we're partners conducting our behaviour
for a grand flotsam revelry
dizzed up and narcotic
no doubt ; we are unreal
it is the neon hour...
i flicker
feeling the rushing of your warm system
i feel weather speed over our bodies
striping and refreshing the energy
in the oil light blinking i see you
scar beauty over the berths' landscape
you turn the body over and illuminate the eyes
you are if to say "plug back in to our shared motion"
"we could be imperishable"
"i cannot return without my inconsiderate spouse"
you brush my hand which fizzes
and i clothe my eyes
re-enter our developing potion
within our great mouths feed alike
our dual nature is a shared gratification within
Feb 2, 2023
Feb 2, 2023 at 11:47 AM UTC
and in that long embrace
did I sense
depths of longing
abundant yearning
cries of desperation
enclosed in that tiny frame
cleaved unto my chest
my heart hears
and aches with her
breaks, and cries with her
longing for
her pains to resolve
for peace to set in at ease
for my warmth to grant
blessed reassurance
but alas
I am no saviour
barely a lover
just a friend
only shall I ever be
there by her side
in earnest prayer
in hope that
breakthrough arrives
and salvation draws near.
Oct 13, 2022
Oct 13, 2022 at 2:41 AM UTC
The sweet, honey colored love
that pours from every cut
every other girl made on you
You let me kiss it better
inhale its sweetness.
In turn, the salt that pours from my own wounds
from black eyes dealt
and flesh cleaved for the pleasure of greedy wolves
it mingles with your flavor
and I hope it sets you onto the same dazzling track that I find myself on.
I use the word 'fireworks'
'firecrackers'
those two words
they have leaked into everything I write
because it is just how I feel
How I used to hate dance music
and now my hips sway to a beat that you showed me
showed me to smile
and I showed you where to cry
right here, right with me
Those sparkling lights over the ground
blasting off in gold and white
burning and glowing
and not stopping
a constant barrage of color and splendor
We were buried up to our necks just before we dug out
and now we're here
barely missing the stars
holding hands
and becoming
Honey
and Salt
and Firecrackers
Jul 14, 2013
Jul 14, 2013 at 9:34 PM UTC
I was a grovelling creature once,
And basely cleaved to earth:
I wanted spirit to renounce
The clod that gave me birth.
But God hath breathed upon a worm,
And sent me from above
Wings such as clothe an angel's form,
The wings of joy and love.
With these to Pisgah's top I fly
And there delighted stand,
To view, beneath a shining sky,
The spacious promised land.
The Lord of all the vast domain
Has promised it to me,
The length and breadth of all the plain
As far as faith can see.
How glorious is my privilege!
To Thee for help I call;
I stand upon a mountain's edge,
O save me, lest I fall!
Though much exalted in the Lord,
My strength is not my own;
Then let me tremble at His word,
And none shall cast me down.
2k
You found me staring, hair full of sand:
I had tried to embrace the water as my blood
and was reprimanded by a wave for my daring.
Around us the thick grass like palm-sunday fronds
and the path of boards lifted from a painting
dissolved into steel wool. The rest of the scene
has been redacted, smeared from my mind
with an inky thumb.
You found me between sleep. I am still
waiting to be returned to , or
wherever the quarter-light carved your back
into soft photograin beneath my childs hands.
You said, "
", words warming me
with the bloom of a chrysanthemum beneath my chest.
Does the crown of petals still ***** like the cigarettes
off that balcony, overlooking ?
I burned my body into your imagined contours.
The space between ours folded over and
again, an origami figure slowly taking on mass and attitude.
It sat on my shoulder, Incan headdress grown solid one day,
stock right foot the next. It cleaved and cleaved.
We joined at or maybe , in the rain.
Or was it? My face was wet, and hands or moths
fluttered against an aquarium window.
If dreaming, I awoke when : the train
flattened its memory like a penny.
Here it is, squashed between my fingers. The face pushed
like putty, smoothed like the faces of and
and of course , who remains
only as a scratchy, juvenile voice.
May 12, 2010
May 12, 2010 at 7:28 PM UTC
Tavy CleaveWhen I walked along your leats;The hawk soared the sky,Singing it's song like prayer,Cutting through blue time.Round your corner of hill majesty,Tawny colours grew;Grass: dun as a horses back;Cleaved hills knitted my fissured flesh and heart.Empted I approached:The blue river of you flowed through me,Where echoed waterfalls reached deep pools,Sweet wild songs rose to the top of your granite shoulders.
Feb 24, 2010
Feb 24, 2010 at 1:19 AM UTC
the divergence of roads
is an illusion
a myth perpetuated
by those who fear solitude
but one who has walked the lonely path
enjoyed all its sights, sounds and sceneries
rested in the shade of its motherly oaks
knows that at last
everything converges
every road, every fellow traveller
every other choice
meets at one
single brilliant point
- Vijayalakshmi Harish
08.02.2013
Copyright © Vijayalakshmi Harish,
Feb 11, 2013
Feb 11, 2013 at 1:09 AM UTC
She couldn't express her grief
but knew this tangible loss,
felt affinity with old bones
a bond with lost loved ones.
She cleaved close to those,
it being in her very nature
a clan thing - family loyalty,
bridging a long span of years.
Her trunk trumpeted, mutely,
while lowering a sister's tusk
softly on the blanched shards
of the ancestor herds, tendered
in this final act of fellowship
from one gentle giant to another.
Apr 6, 2014
Apr 6, 2014 at 12:53 AM UTC
Unburied
tomorrow
from Christian metanarratives
the mid-winter solstice.
December 21;
the shortest day
over the longest night.
Two lovers
are by the Channel
divided
to different beds
to tongue tastes
to timed beats
to unfamiliar scents
as Yuletide days
burn twelfths to gray ash;
their bodies
are sea
cleaved.
Come!
cross the water
and release
with lively touch
tresses thick
and winter's dew,
unctuous upon the crag,
the timely solar orb
to stir the frozen ground
on our rocky shelves
and chopped bowels.
On 25th,
Christ's star is risen:
the king's light dispersed
in lengthening days
in opened flesh
in loosening chords untied
in sinews gnawed through
in desire's wanting hotly flayed!
60 seconds were daily added,
to when
in the 100 Year Gallery,
love to know,
would in solstice
ultimately lay.
For now as then,
our emboldened play
in days delayed
has been
love's lacerating torment!
Jan 1, 2019
Jan 1, 2019 at 12:05 AM UTC
Day by day,
night by night,
such a cliche opening;
I hate it.
Usually,
I can sit & write unbounded
but recently my brain's been
cleaved into microscopic encryptions.
It seems almost impossible to
...elucidate my mental paradigm
...or maybe to accept it?
Sometimes...
I find myself
yearning to write about nature
but then I begin to cogitate on
how aesthetic nature is.
Trees and flowers.
*"You and me.
K-I-S-S-I-N-G
..under the trees.
R-O-L-L-I-N-G
...in the flowers.
You and me."*
****
Don't get things misconstrued,
I just love,
writing about love.
There's a girl I've never met
but mentally it feels like,
we share telepathy.
I feel like
...within the distance between us,
there's this distinctive cryptic aura
and I yearn to decrypt it.
****
...told you I just love writing about love.
Ironically though,
I'm far from ready for it.
-d.b.d.
Feb 13, 2015
Feb 13, 2015 at 6:54 PM UTC
It is said virtue possessed by a sage causes him no misfortune
But it is he who must decide between rage or a stoic nature
In all of life he sees the destruction cast by man’s emotion
The will of another man is how he determines which is greater
Would he hang a nun in the town square if it would save a forest?
He once could see snow on the mountain tops in the spring
And now that he can only see rock he wondered of his desires
Was it for mankind or the bounties he received to hear nature sing?
If only his will could be released from the evil and the good
Then his form would guide his views within the natural state
But what has cleaved to him is being torn away while he grieves
And the steps he takes can only hear the voices of his fate
The aggression of making a life made an orphan of conservation
But lives alone in the wild was intended for our own good
A revolution cannot begin until it reaches those with something to lose
Until then one man will give his life as his mother knew he would
Jun 5, 2015
Jun 5, 2015 at 9:16 PM UTC
When she first discovered the last fictitious and missing piece, that absent link that could create
That would fit so very perfectly between her fastidious reality and her dream filled escape
That piece was what filled her with the alluring thoughts of setting the diamond edged blades aside
To let her bloodied and gore encrusted wrist's lay. To finally heal her disfigured and cleaved thighs
To set aside the insomniac coloured nights, filled with a nervous tick called suffering and misery
Bringing dread filled terror for next days coming, day and night it creeps into her lightless sanity
It graced her with the forgotten hope, that daisy chains and blades of grass would keep her honest
Hope she had long abandoned as she hid within the scarred tissue upon her mangled conscience
Telling her that she was now allowed to forget her aphotic and distressing amorphous past
It was filled with many an onus and distrusts that she choked on; from lack of air, her brain begins to crack
Her Mother and her Father thought she was a "lacking" kind child, those that required little needs
It reminded her that she would never again have to repress and crunch down those memories
They rise inside her throat, until she regurgitates them along with what little food she would eat
She sits in her room most nights, crying softly alone and wishing to be as thin as the models on TV
That last puzzle piece was supplying her with a vociferous need to put the bottle of pills down,
Many had slipped their way down her esophagus, from diet to Analgesic's, they ranged wide
They were locked away in her father's medicine cabinet, so of course she was always punctilious
Puts an aspirin in place for the ones she stole, so her parents (Would they care?) were left oblivious
She tried to push that last piece in, shoving it somewhere between a wrong scene of the puzzle
So the piece was soon to be lost, destroyed within the struggle to find the perfect place
As she was losing to and was within her blithering mind, wild and frightened, filled with dismay
She then reverts to the false reality, in which she called her final escape.
The last daring and startling move, the check mate, the final set stage of the play
Where dreams become the reality, and reality becomes the dream
Jul 7, 2013
Jul 7, 2013 at 9:22 PM UTC
A man spoke to me, not my friend, but still
His words were gilded and I listened
And as he raved, his brutal demeanor
Surprised me, and two more voices came.
They had no wings nor halos
Their hands were free of pitchforks,
But they spoke as we have seen, and said,
This This man man is is precious insane.
My head vibrated like the drum they took it for
And my ears cleaved in two
I tried to listen to the man before me
But I was too deep in my own beliefs.
For he seemed bad and good
Fun and frightening
I could not decide where I stood
And the man leapt on me
With one hand he shook mine
With the other he teared at my eyelids
I did not know what to do
For he was acting according to my plan
He left me warm and cold
Unsure of myself
And I slept there
Until I knew what he was
He was the voices
The terrible decision to make
For neither he nor I could decide
If he was a killer or a gem,
For we were both men.
Jan 30, 2015
Jan 30, 2015 at 10:39 AM UTC
At daybreak, the messenger was killed by my hand;
I grasped and cleaved the life where it once grew,
Claiming it selfishly for my own eyes to view.
Violet allured and the desire began to expand.
Each morning the secret scent of future days
Secretes whirlwinds of intoxicating haze.
A lustful hunger overtook what was planned.
Before snapping root to stem, a final call before the knell:
The delicate crocuses whispered, “Spring,” then softly fell.
Oct 7, 2010
Oct 7, 2010 at 5:47 PM UTC